Big Picture: The state of automation

Intelligrated: A question of balance
When it comes to distribution, multi-channel retailing is creating challenges and opportunities for automated materials handling. “I think of it as store front and front door fulfillment,” says Jerry Koch, director of corporate marketing and product management for Intelligrated. “You want the right mix of equipment and software to make decisions at the speed of the automation to have a positive effect on the day.”

The approach being pursued by Intelligrated, says Koch, is to use warehouse management and warehouse control software to manage the release and flow of orders in a way that balances the work in the building. The system not only gets materials to the shipping dock efficiently, it distributes the work in a manner that keeps everyone busy without creating bottlenecks. If one area of the facility becomes too busy, the system can redirect the flow of material to another area that has capacity and it can make those decisions dynamically in real time.

Looking forward, Koch and Intelligrated expect to see breakthroughs in robotics, especially as vision technologies mature. “This is an area where there are a lot of conversations going on with customers,” says Koch. “The driver is the cost and availability of labor. We expect to see this continue to pick up steam.”